(Photo by Jbdodane via Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)
For centuries, baobab trees have shaped life across Africa, towering over cities as ecological anchors and cultural landmarks. Widely known as “The Tree Of Life”, baobabs can store tens of thousands of litres of water in their trunks, survive prolonged droughts, regenerate damaged bark, and live for more than a thousand years, sustaining both human communities and wildlife through periods of scarcity.
In January 2026, that legacy became a point of conflict in Kinshasa, where the city’s last remaining central baobab stands beside the main ferry port in the commune of Gombe. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s capital, now home to nearly 18 million people, has expanded exponentially, absorbing waves of migration while shedding much of the greenery that once lined its avenues.
The baobab itself, planted more than a century ago to commemorate the construction of the ferry port, survived colonial rule, independence, and decades of political upheaval. Yet in late 2025, construction machinery arrived at its base as part of a development project. Activists rushed to block the work, halting the tree’s removal just in time. What stands today is not simply a tree, but a living measure of how Kinshasa balances expansion with memory.
Bula Matari: The Era of Colonial Expansion
Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh-born journalist, rose to prominence through his daring 1871 expedition to locate Livingstone at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. Stanley pushed westward to the Lualaba River and continued downstream along what is now known today as the be the Congo River. Eventually, he reached the Atlantic Ocean in 1877. It was during this forceful expansion that Stanley earned the nickname “Bula Matari”, or “Breaker of Rocks”, reflecting his aggressive work carving a path for European colonization.
Acting on behalf of King Leopold II, Stanley helped secure control of the Congolese territory by obtaining agreements from local rulers. Leopold commissioned Stanley and his agents to collect signatures from Congolese kings renouncing their lands, in exchange for trivial goods.
These agreements contributed to Leopold’s recognition as ruler of the Congo Free State following the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. This conference formalized European claims in Africa and enabled Leopold to establish personal control over the region. In 1885, the Congo Free State became Leopold’s private possession rather than a colony, allowing him to administer it primarily for economic extraction. Stanley’s earlier expeditions and treaty-making thus played a key role in enabling the colonial system that later emerged under Leopold’s rule.
As a direct result of Leopold’s administration, nearly 10 million Congolese people died. For decades, rampant violence, torture, famine, and disease spread across the country, ultimately contributing to a genocide of the Congolese people. International criticism eventually forced Leopold to transfer the Congo Free State to the Belgian government in 1908, after which it became the Belgian Congo.
Following this, the Congo experienced political instability, including leadership struggles and military intervention. Scholars link these later governance challenges to institutional patterns established during colonial rule, including centralized authority, resource exploitation, and weak administrative structures.
Protecting Kinshasa’s Ecological Identity
The capital itself reflects this historical transformation. The colonial city of “Léopoldville” was renamed “ Kinshasa” in 1966 after independence, symbolizing the country’s effort to move away from its colonial past and assert a national identity rooted in African history.
In Kinshasa, within the commune of Gombe a solitary, baobab tree stands near the ferry port. Planted over a century ago, the baobob commemorated independence and the city’s development. Broad avenues were lined with baobabs, shading marketplaces and communal gatherings spots. Today, this single baobab is all that remains of a vanished urban forest, threatened daily by the city’s growth, which consumes 5 hectares of land and welcomes roughly 2,000 new residents each day.
(Photo by Francis Shok Mweze via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)
The city spans nearly ten thousand square kilometres and houses more than 20 million people in a patchwork of Industrial zones, affluent districts, and sprawling informal settlements born from decades of unplanned expansion and rural migration.
Scientifically known as Adansonia digitata, the baobab is an ecological and cultural anchor. Historically, these trees were woven into African urban planning, planted near trading routes to serve as vital landmarks. Their massive crowns, which can live for over 2,500 years, create social hubs and marketplaces, linking modern communities to historical narratives and local identity.
Additionally, the baobab offers more than 300 uses for humans. Its fruit is a “superfood” packed with Vitamin C and antioxidants. While its leaves can be brewed for traditional medicine, its seeds are roasted into beverages. And its bark is woven into everything from rope to waterproof hats. Following the baobabs through the expansion of Kinshasa provide a window into the complex realities faced by the DRC.
Lasting Colonial Effects on Energy
This expansion has collided with a deep energy deficit. With fewer than 10% of Congolese connected to the power grid, electricity remains a luxury. More than 90% of residents rely on charcoal or fuelwood for their basic needs, making the city an engine of deforestation for the provinces surrounding it.
A study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) puts the scale of this pressure into perspective. According to the CIFOR, every year Kinshasa receives around 0.00048 cubic kilometres of fuelwood or charcoal, largely sourced from peri-urban forests that are exhausted before extraction. Between 2000 and 2020, the DRC lost nearly 5 million hectares of primary forest. In 2020 alone, the country was among the world’s largest contributors to tropical forest loss despite limited industrial development.
Unlike other deforestation projects driven by global exports, such as the Amazon, the DRC is fueled by subsistence farming that satisfies local energy needs. Specifically, the Congo Basin is the largest remaining tropical forest carbon sink on Earth. Within, it absorbs an estimated 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Additionally, its peat swamps store roughly 29 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to several years of global fossil fuel emissions.
(Photo by GRID-Arendal via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)
With approximately 60% of this ecosystem lying within Congolese territory, Kinshasa’s growth is a matter of international importance. Ongoing conflict, limited infrastructure, and rising temperatures intensify this vulnerability. In eastern regions, armed groups finance operations through illicit charcoal production, timber extraction, or mining. This enables a cycle of environmental degradation reinforced by violence and corruption.
The presence of the last baobab links its fate to the vast forests of the Congo Basin. Consequently, proving that environmental preservation in expanding cities cannot be separated from the global questions of development finance and climate accountability.
Nature-Based Solutions in Kinshasa
In response to these pressures, local authorities have begun integrating nature-based solutions (NbS) into urban planning. These strategies use high-resolution geospatial data to identify flood risks, unstable soils, and urban heat corridors. By maximizing the number of trees planted, it is creating a landscape that slows runoff and prevents the erosion that claims lives in Kinshasa.
Crucially, this is not a top-down approach. Community engagement has become the backbone of these projects, with women, youth, and Indigenous knowledge holders informing species selection. This ensures that the trees planted, much like the baobab, provide food and income for local families. Ultimately establishing ecological protection as tool for social inclusion.
Yet, the fight to save a single baobab in Kinshasa exposes a much larger national dilemma. How can this city protect 60% of the Congo Basin rainforest and nearly one-third of the world’s tropical peatlands? That tension shaped initiatives such as the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor, formalized by government decree in January 2025. Spanning nearly 550,000 square kilometres, the corridor links eastern and western Congo.
Rather than pushing agriculture deeper into intact forests, the project focuses on tilling land already damaged by years of extraction. Officials estimate that roughly 3 million hectares within the corridor are already farmed. These lands produce about 13 million tons of food annually. Consequently, the corridor seeks to emphasize local hubs rather than expand through deforestation.
Jean Mangalibi’s Living Memory
Amid urban pressures, local gardener Jean Mangalibi has emerged as a central activist for urban environmental stewardship. To protect what remains, he mobilized a collective of activists to form “Autour du Baobab” (Around the Baobab). This collective does more than just advocate for ecology. They engage in government lobbying and direct action to defend the city’s last baobab.
Mangalibi’s own nursery has been ransacked several times as a result of his opposition to developers. For him, the Baobab represents a “continuation of history” that modern urban planning has failed to respect. Understanding why activists protect this single trunk, one must recognize the century of development from when it was first planted.
Ultimately, the Baobab is a sign of liberation and identity. Erected in an era defined by European colonization and the aftermath of colonizers who forever rewrote the Congolese landscape.
Lasting Reflections of the Last Baobab
Kinshasa’s experience reflects broader lessons for the Global South. According to the World Economic Forum, over the past decade, weather-related disasters have displaced approximately 60,000 people every day. By 2050, climate change could displace 143 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.
Protecting Kinshasa’s baobab does not stand in opposition to national development plans. Rather, it exposes the conditions under which development becomes sustainable. While large-scale initiatives like the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor raise valid concerns about displacement, the current focus should reflect conflict-affected zones instead of monoculture expansion.
The baobab has revealed that trees should not be removed to make development possible. They should be the structures that preserve the history of Kinshasa. Simultaneously, the protection of this lone tree asserts that ecological assets can anchor planning and empower communities. The question is no longer if Congo will develop, but whether that development will continue to erase its ecological foundations or finally learn to grow around them.
Edited by Chelsea Bean and Isaac Code
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